Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western Europe, Volume VII, Part 2

68. Letter From the British Ambassador (Caccia) to Secretary of State Dulles⁰

November 7, 1958.

Dear Mr. Secretary: The Foreign Secretary has asked me to let you have for your personal information the attached account of his conversation with M. Couve de Murville in London yesterday about General de Gaulle’s ideas on tripartite co-operation.

If you could manage it before leaving for Seattle,¹ I should be most grateful for an opportunity of a word about this. We have had other reports of the General’s views from other sources, which I should also like to mention.

Yours sincerely,

Harold Caccia

[Attachment]

²

RECORD OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR. SELWYN LLOYD AND M. COUVE DE MURVILLE IN LONDON ON NOVEMBER 6, 1958

General de Gaulle’s Plan

M. Couve de Murville began our discussion by saying that he wished to make it perfectly plain that there was no connection between the French attitude about the Free Trade Area and General de Gaulle’s memorandum of September 17.

2. I asked him to elaborate on the following two points in the General’s memorandum:

(a) “A new body”. M. Couve de Murville said this did not mean that the General wanted to create a new tripartite body or organization. What he wanted was “organised consultation”. Such consultation already took place between the French, Americans and ourselves on matters such as Disarmament and Germany, but it should be extended to other problems of common interest to the three countries, particularly in the Middle East and Far East.

(b) “Joint decisions”. M. Couve de Murville said that consultation was pointless unless designed to reach agreement. Perhaps “common position” was a better description of the aim of consultation as the General understood it. There was no question in the General’s mind of the imposition of decisions on others, although in practice if France, the United Kingdom and the United States took the same line in NATO, the other members usually followed suit.

3. I said that any too obvious “organised discussion” or “common positions” in NATO would be badly received by others. A continuation and extension of informal private consultation on the present pattern might, however, be possible.

4. M. Couve de Murville said that he quite understood that there must be private United States/United Kingdom consultation on nuclear questions. Nor did he object to action without consultation in emergencies. But there should, if possible, be proper consultation before emergencies arose.

5. M. Couve de Murville said that it was unfortunate that the memorandum had become associated in people’s minds only with NATO. M. Spaak had wrongly taken it as directed against himself.

6. There were really two distinct questions which occupied the General:

(a) Consultation, both political and military, outside NATO;

(b) The military reorganisation of NATO covering such matters as areas and commands.

As to (a) the General would not be satisfied with the types of political exchange of views now carried on in NATO, (b) was a NATO concern, but the General was not aiming to bring about far-reaching changes in the NATO structure. His main concern was the Mediterranean area where, although the metropolitan departments of Algeria were covered, the French Government felt that the military organisation was not adapted to its task. It should cover the whole of North Africa, including the Sahara, and its planning should be directed towards Libya, Suez and even the Red Sea.

7. I raised the question of “strategic plans especially those involving the use of nuclear weapons” mentioned in the General’s memorandum. M. Couve de Murville said that he assumed that the United States Government had strategic plans both in the NATO sector and elsewhere. While the United States disposed of most of the means to carry out these plans, it was very desirable that there should be consultation between the three Powers in this field too. Even if the Americans had no such plans, the other two Powers ought at least to know the position. I said that we surely had adequate general information on United States planning as regards Europe through the Standing Group. I also emphasized that it was most important not to risk prejudicing political consultation by pressing for military information.

8. We agreed that further discussion was best pursued on a tripartite basis in Washington (assuming that we all reached agreement on the press statement³ and that the discussions actually started). My strong advice to M. Couve de Murville was that the French representative should say very little about strategic plans and should concentrate on political consultation. I underlined the danger of the “institutional” aspect of the General’s memorandum.

9. M. Couve de Murville confirmed that he would remain in close touch during the tripartite discussions with other interested NATO countries and that he had done his best to reassure them. He also confirmed that the French Government were opposed to any discussion of the General’s proposals at the December NATO meeting, though he recognised that there might be a discussion about political consultation on the basis of a paper produced by M. Spaak.⁴

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Secret; Personal. a handwritten notation on the source text reads: “Sec saw.”
1. Dulles attended the Colombo Plan Meeting in Seattle November 10–13.
2. Secret; Personal.
3. Text of the proposed public announcement for the tripartite talks was transmitted in telegram 1643 to Paris, November 5. (Department of State, Central Files, 740.5/11–558) The announcement stated that the de Gaulle proposals were concerned with better coordination of policies and resources and that the French-U.K.–U.S. discussions were part of a general survey and were exploratory.
4. On November 8, Stoessel indicated that Laloy reported that Couve de Murville’s talks with Lloyd on November 6 were confined largely to the Common Market-FTA problem. Laloy had stated that the talks did not advance matters and the atmosphere was “rather heavy.” (Memorandum of conversation by Stoessel, November 8; ibid., WE Files: Lot 61 D 30, Memos of Conversation—1958)